Rebecca Ejdervik on The Morning Swim Show

Nov. 19, 2012: Rebecca Ejdervik is making the transition from collegiate swimmer to postgrad, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show she talks about making the move from Arizona to Florida to continue her swimming career. The Swedish breaststroker attended the final three meets in the FINA World Cup, and she talks about how those meets prepared her for the upcoming Swedish nationals and short course world championships. She also discusses the team she swims with in Miami, and what drew her to move to Florida.

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Tiffany Elias: This is the Morning Swim Show for Monday, November 19th, 2012. I am your host Tiffany Elias. Today's guest in the FINIS Monitor has made her way through a few of the meets of the FINA World Cup Circuit. Rebecca Ejdervik,a former ASU Sun Devil, is joining us today from her home country of Sweden to share her circuit experience. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

Rebecca Ejdervik: Thank you so much. I am happy to be here.

Tiffany: Well congratulations on getting a few meets under your belt and now a little bit of down time before you continue on I presume?

Rebecca: Yeah, a little bit of down time. I just got back. I landed like a few hours ago from Beijing, so my head is still a little messed up with the time difference, but it is nice to be home and get to relax a little bit after all this traveling and the meets.

Tiffany: Well that is what I was hoping you would share with us today is the FINA World Circuit is pretty demanding and that it is quite a few meets in a short period of time and all over the country in the world. So you made three of those meets: Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo, so why don't you tell us a little bit about what your schedule has been like over the past few months?

Rebecca: Well I decided in August that I was going to do a few of the World Cups, but I didn't want to do the whole series because I wanted world championships to still be the main focus, but there aren"t a lot of meets in the U.S for me at that point and I got the opportunity to go to these World Cups and it is a great experience. It is so intense though, like you come 2 days before the meet starts. You race two days and then you"re off to the next country with a new time zone and -- but it is really exciting at the same time because you get to meet so many people along on the way and you travel together, you race together. You live and eat together. It is a little more relaxing than it is on the world championships and I really enjoyed it and it was a great experience.

Tiffany: So then you are traveling as a team or with other people, so you are not doing this on your own. You are with other athletes that are going through the process with you?

Rebecca: Absolutely. We were only four swimmers from Sweden, but that is a nice little team too, and - but we were, I don't know how many, but there are quite a big group of swimmers who are doing the whole series and I just think you really, sorry I lost myself there and you really get to know people in a different way.

Tiffany: So how about the funding on this? Does your country help out with that or is it on your personal dime. How has the funding been for this world circuit?

Rebecca: I know Sweden is funding this I think we actually get to send it for at least 4 people to every World Cups since Stockholm is arranging one too and we are sending one team to each of the World Cup stops every year since we are arranging one too.

Tiffany: And now the training along the way do you guys, do you just have to go find a pool that is nearby or how does a training work when you are traveling around and with the time changing and all that?

Rebecca: Like in between the meets, you can warm up and practice in the competition pool. The only little issue we have was when we stayed an extra day in Singapore when the whole series was over and we had to find a pool in little India, which was really interesting experience. Totally different area than we were used to hanging out in the previous couple of days and interesting pool rules and we couldn't use our flippers, we couldn't use our paddles or anything, but it is interesting to experience different kind of pool environments too I guess when it comes to different countries.

Tiffany: Wow that is very interesting. You have a quite a bit of traveling experience. You are from Sweden and you swam over here in the States, but you have been to other world Circuit meets. This is probably been your most extensive Circuit as you did a couple in a row, but is the traveling - could you really feel that factor into your performance in Beijing and Tokyo and Singapore?

Rebecca: Yeah, of course. I got there and after a 20-hour flight and it is 13 hours time difference from Miami to Beijing, so that definitely got -- affected me of course, but it doesn't affect you more than you let it affect you because I am used to it from before when I go home for Nationals or Europeans, I just get right into it and I don't think about it too much, but of course it is like in your body, 13 hours. You are racing in the middle of the night and of course it"s an adjustment, but after about 2 weeks those 13 hours of the time difference is like back to normal and now I am back to Sweden again so it is 7 hours time difference from Beijing so it is always something, it is something to adjust too.

Tiffany: Right. Well we are familiar with watching you on the NCAA scene. You were one of the fastest 100 breaststrokers in the country, finished off your collegiate career third, so very strong in the college scene. How did that translate over to the World Circuit scene. How did you match up against the competition. Were you happy with your performances?

Rebecca: I was happy with my performances, absolutely as I said like coming from such a long flight and a big time difference. It is really exciting to do so well and I actually did like a best time without the supersuits so that was exciting too and go back to short course meters which I haven't done in a few years now since it has just been a lot of yards meets and long course meters, but I have been on the world scene or what you call it before and it is really exciting to race people from all over the world and it is a little different from the college scene absolutely. It is -- college is very intense and really exciting in a special way, and on the world scene it is more - this is what people are doing for a living so it is just a little different atmosphere, but I really like it.

Tiffany: Is there anything you particularly miss about college swimming or the United States in general since you are now back to being in Sweden and all over the world?

Rebecca: I miss the team aspect of college swimming absolutely always having a team around you, but right now since I am still training with a college team in Miami I still kind of get the same deal but I am not officially on a team anymore so I definitely miss that and the excitement from dual meets and not getting ready for NCAA in conference I absolutely miss that but - what was the question again I am sorry?

Tiffany: Just what you really miss from college swimming?

Rebecca: Yeah, definitely the team aspect and like getting ready to race with your whole team instead only focusing on yourself like I am doing now. I am doing this for myself and not having a whole team around me. And what I miss from the U.S. right now is actually bagels, we don't have bagels in Sweden.

Tiffany: Wow.

Rebecca: So I really missed that. I hope I will get back to it around Christmas so that I will have my fair share of bagels again.

Tiffany: Oh yeah, well maybe someone can send you out a drop shipment of bagels to last you for a little bit. What is the team that your are swimming with down in Miami?

Rebecca: I am swimming with the University of Miami so it is a women"s team, a division 1 team and the Coach is Aaron Ciarla and it is a good team. I really enjoy being there it is a good group of girls and I swim with Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace is there too so we are roommates and it is a great sprint program and it is a very different from what I am used to and it is time to try something else and only focus on the 50 and 100 like I am doing now and not doing the 200 at all actually. I left that behind. I left that in college.

Tiffany: Well that happens sometimes when you got to move on to the shorter events. Now, well that is great. Why did you choose Miami for your post-college training?

Rebecca: I heard a lot of good things about Aaron as a coach, and he has a lot of experience with sprinting, and sprinting was what I wanted and Miami of course is a great city and I still wanted to say in a warm state but I wanted something different than what I had at ASU and I knew Arianna and some other sprinters were going there so I knew it was going to be a really good group of swimmers there too and I also had Sofia Johansson, who is a Swedish breaststroker and we train really, really well together, so that is really exciting. So I guess I have a really good -- I knew it would be a really good training environment with a good coach and something totally different from what I have been doing so far.

Tiffany: Well that is great. So moving forward what are your plans now that the World Circuit Meets are done? We have got World Championships coming up here in a bit. What are your plans now moving forward?

Rebecca: First of all I am going to just slow down, take it easy and enjoy being home in the cold again and then we had nationals next week, so I am going to go there and race a little bit and then just prepare for World's and get ready for that and get better than I have done so far in the World Cup Series.

Tiffany: So before we close, what is the culture like in Swedish swimming? What is the culture like among your teams and I think you have enough experience now training and representing your country. What is that culture like?

Rebecca: Compared to the U.S., it is not as much about the team. It is more about you as an individual and you have to take a lot of responsibility yourself. Coaches here are not like on you as college coaches are to do stuff because it is really about your own motivation, and I think that is good in its own way too and it is just a little more relaxed than college swimming I guess and -- but we also don't have as much swimmers here so it sometimes can be hard to find someone to train with, but yeah, it is a lot different. It really more relaxed here and more on your own responsibility and it is up to yourself how good you want to be.

Tiffany: Well you have done a great job post college swimming and looks like you found a great place in Miami to train for the future, good job on your meet so far and we look forward to hopefully seeing you out there at Worlds.

Rebecca: Yes, thank you.

Tiffany: Thanks Rebecca.

Rebecca: You too. Bye.

Tiffany: That is Rebecca Ejdervikin the FINIS Monitor and that will conclude today's morning swim show. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with all the latest news. I am your host Tiffany Elias. Thanks for watching.